Shades Of Red
by PTT809
Summary: Chronologically ordered shorts written in 3rd person but still from Kallen's POV providing some insight on her personality and motivations of course with some artistic freedom. Story diverges from canon when the Black Rebellion actually wins the battle for Tokyo.
1. Once Upon A Time

**All rights belong to the author of Code Geass.**

**A character that deserves more insight and attention I think is Kallen, but that gives me the room to elaborate.**

**Kallen must have went through many things during the Invasion, and sometime after the occupation and up to the point she goes to live with her father.**

It was not just dark, there was simply nothing.

There was once upon a time when Kallen Kouzuki was full of life, bursting with hope and had nothing but love to give to others. She was moody and often got angry at others but this never lasted very long and was quickly forgotten. She had many aspirations in life, a teacher like her mother, a businessman like her father, a musician like her brother.

Once upon a time there was happiness. A long time ago in the eyes of her short life. Back then Britannia was a far away place where her father came from. But on a certain day seven years ago, Britannia made its violent entry into her world. Crushing everything under its mighty boot and building its own world on top of the ruins of her own.

A faint glimmer of light appeared from somewhere, she had not noticed until now.

Kallen was innocent before all this started, there where many things in life she was not aware of and she might have stayed in the dark about them well way into adulthood because life was that good. She knew very little of the darker side of humans and what they where capable of.

She learned what horror was when she saw hundreds of dead bodies, many torn to shreds lying at every turn of the corner. She met fear when she herself narrowly escaped a similar fate. The helplessness of being at the mercy of someone that considered you less than the dirty under your feet, it was a new experience. The uncertainty that came with each sunrise when the news comes that someone you knew for long time had been killed. It took some time to get used to the fact that she could be next.

Slowly but surely the light was taking over, it was so subtle but after a while it could hardly be ignored. She felt warmer by the second.

And pain. There should be another name for the pain one feels when their world is suddenly devastated by the loss of someone close to you. Her brother Naoto. She wasn't the exception, many more had gone trough the same but it didn't make it less painful. That he was a rebel and that he laid his life on the line everyday didn't make it more bearable.

After the light and the warmth became unbearable, she blinked away a few times dissipating the darkness that covered her eyes. The sunrays where aimed directly at her face making her frown to protect her eyes. Those same eyes scanned for her clock which told her it was time, which she regretted with a sigh.

The young woman sat up letting the blankets slide off her baring her natural endownments to the warm and stale air in the room. She ruffled her fiery mane and those blue eyes stared into a point far away on the floor just a meter from her. Her thousand yard stare was unreadable at least to those unfamiliar to the worst that men can offer, despite not having the sun directly in her face, the frown remained.

Yes... She had been happy, she had hopes and dreams, there was love for her in this world, and she gave love back... But that was a long time ago... Once upon a time.


	2. Her Path Of Blood

**I myself frowned at this piece, which portrays Kallen as a conscienceless mass murderer but truth is Kallen was a terrorist. Who knows how much fun the invasion and Britannian occupation was for her? Cause she had not always lived in that luxurious mansion in the settlement you know? She has a big grudge against the Holy Empire for killing her brother, she is also young and quite hot blooded. Reasons aplenty to urge her to do 'something'.**

**But what exactly could she do? The mission would be to drive out the invaders, but since they can not challenge the war machine in open battle a valid tactic would be to make the occupation and settlement of Japan so dangerous that no settler would want to live in Area 11. And who better than this well bred and upstanding britannian girl to do so? She can come and go in and around the settlement without arousing suspicions.**

**And her being ice cold in the episode is necessary, otherwise, she would not be able to do what she does and sleep at night. Rest assured the next few episodes will slowly show her progression into something more likeable than this.  
**

Hate... It was her religion.

It was a sunny morning in the Tokyo settlement, the mag lev train was about to reach it's destination in two minutes from then. All wagons where relatively full with people, exclusively britannians. All of them minding their own business, a man in a suit reading the newspaper, a woman, lost in thought, planning her evening. Students chatting rather loudly with each other.

Hate was what got her through the years of occupation, it made her stronger, helped her carry on when all hopes and dreams where shattered. Hate, for killing her friends, her neighbors and her people. For taking away something she once took for granted, their identity and forcing them to be called elevens. For forcing a life of servitude on them, the inhuman treatment and the systematic extermination of her kind.

Amongst them a young woman, or a mature girl, held the sling of a very heavy bag that laid on the floor between her legs. Her blue eyes looked behind her, outside the window seeing the sun that had just risen not very long ago casting shadows on the old and tattered buildings that made up one of the old cities where many Japanese lived.

She brushed her red locks out of her hair and shifted in her seat nervously before looking at her watch.

The speaker in the wagon came to life announcing that they had arrived at the station and people began standing up from their seats to try and exit as fast as they could. The redhead stood up as well and walked towards the door empty handed.

She exited the train and walked with a steady pace, her lips pursed, her chin held up high and her brow making a cute frown. She walked through the mass of people rushing to and fro towards the exit at the same time that she produced a telephone from her pockets.

As she walked through the large glass panes that made up the front of the building she dialed a number, her hand steady and her fingers not missing a digit. She walked down the steps holding the phone to her ear getting out of the blast zone.

She had a long list of transgressions against her and someone had to pay for that. Someone had to pay. So she killed. She killed as many as she could, as long as their names where not written in Kanji they all had to die. Let them eat lead, give them bombs for present, let em eat and drink what she made specially for them, let them breathe their death in. You, your wife, you husband, your parents, and their parents your kids and their kids. It didn't really matter, they all had to die to die. It was the only way to make it even.

They just had to die.

A powerful explosion rocked the building, the front of the building which was mostly glass shattered sending the sharp shard flying out and towards the street, followed by a collective scream of terror and pain and then a plume of dust and smoke.

All the while the one responsible walked through the park opposite of the station as if hell had not just broken loose around her. She pressed the end key on her telephone and closed it, crossing another street ignoring the cries for help coming from the many injured stumbling as they could away from the station.

Amongst the mass confusion she made some distance getting away from the scene. A few more explosions could be heard coming from other directions in the settlement, her comrades carrying out their own assignments.

She reached up to her back, towards her left shoulder blade suddenly feeling something warm there. Her eyes widened in surprise when she felt a rather large piece of glass embedded there, she summarily pulled it out, without a grimace of pain because at the moment she did not feel anything.

She tossed the piece of glass to a side and looked at her hand. It was blood, her hands where stained with it, the blood of hundreds, she smiled wickedly knowing that the god of hate was content with all the blood she had spilled, all the blood on her hands.

She had just killed a few dozens, maimed over two hundred and injured a much larger number. The thought made her smile, as wicked as it was. It was revenge, it was payback and it was fulfilling. She wanted to make them suffer the same way her people had suffered, the way she suffered.

So she delighted herself with the cold dish of vengeance over and over, despite the bitter aftertaste it left in her mouth. It was all she could do to keep her sanity.


	3. Shinning Path

**Some people forget that Kallen was a terrorist, directly or indirectly she had something to do with killing of Britannian settlers. I choose directly and sooner or later it would get to her.**

She had tried to keep herself busy as much as she could. She did her utmost best at school, put in more work than necessary with the black knights and came back home completely exhausted only to torture herself with her training routine.

She was running away, as hard as she could, but she could not run away from herself.

Through the oversized window the moon lit her room. The red haired girl paced back and forth, wearing nothing but her panties and carrying two fifteen pound dumbbells trying to evade her thoughts. But the nagging itch that had been building up over the years that told her that something-if not everything-was wrong was too much to ignore.

Her biceps curled at tandem as she walked towards the door and then she walked backwards to the opposite side, she made more repetitions than what she intended to, not bothering to count, until her muscles cramped and one of the dumbbells slipped from her hand with a loud thump.

Her mood radiated out of her and filled the room with an atmosphere of mixed emotions. Zero had appeared in her life and that had changed things.

She flung the other dumbbell across the room, it landed on her bed, where she aimed for and she followed shortly. She laid there face buried in the mattress, her slender limbs spread out on all directions.

To say that she hated the Britannians was an understatement. There should be another name for the type of hate that poisons your heart and corrupts your soul. She was willing to destroy herself in order to destroy those responsible for her pain, the hate towards them was bigger than her own life.

She rolled off the bed and unto the carpeted floor with her back resting against the frame of her bed. The sweat made her hair stick to her face as she stared off into space, for the many times she had stared death in the face she was afraid of this, but courage was not something she lacked. It was time to confront herself

So to answer back to all that had been done to her and her people, she killed their people by the dozens. But then they would retaliate and kill her people by the hundreds and walk away with impunity, she hated to use the analogy but the scoreboard was in their favor.

She took a deep breath and pushed herself up to her feet, she dragged her feet across the room towards her dresser and sat in the chair in front of it. She was met with her own blue yes looking back at her from the other side of the mirror.

Both sides where bleeding one more profusely than the other but the ones responsible of the real atrocities against the Japanese, the ones that where actually killing them where not brought to justice. She knew that they where killing the wrong people, but what else could they do?

Attacking the Britannian army head on was tantamount to suicide but then killing their civilians...

She shook the thought from her head... Kallen willed her mind to stop. But it was too late.

They where not the ones to blame.

She should not be going down that line of thought. She stood up and reached the spot hwere her training gear laid in a few quick strides, she began exercising franticly to push the thoughts away but to no avail.

They weren't any better than the Britannians, they where also slaughtering innocents that had nothing to do with the quarrel.

One of her muscles cramped up painfully because she didn't take the time to warm up. She stopped and walked back towards the dresser sitting down again. A sob shook her shoulders but she refused to let the tears come.

All they had done was try to get even, but the damage they made was only felt by the relatives of those she helped slaughter. Britannia didn't flinch at a few of its lower class citizens dying in some far away conquered nation.

The Britannians were all her enemies but the ones she killed at the end of the day weren't the source of the problem, they were still part of it though, that's what she thought. It is what she wanted to think.

It took her a while to compose herself, by the time she did the sky outside the window was a shade of red. The sun seemed to cast a shinning path across it.

She had been walking blindly into a path of self destruction, but no more... Her judgment day would come but until then she would stand for Justice. This shinning path that Zero had laid out for her, she would follow it to the very end, it was the least she could do.


	4. The Good Fight

"**One day we will have to atone for our sins, in the meantime, let us try and do the best we can with our lives." -Me.**

A bright yellow van drove through the industrial sector, it was a legitimate company vehicle from a firm that cleaned warehouses and factories. the license and registration of the vehicle where all in order. There was no reason to believe that instead of cleaning supplies a red Glasgow was stowed in the back.

Discrimination against the numbers was Britannian policy, and because of this corruption and abuse when dealing with elevens was widely accepted. That was until the Black Knights came along, because of their actions, exploiting and abusing the Japanese was something to think twice about. Zero would sooner or later make them pay for it.

Burning with the conviction that her cause was just Kallen Kouzuki's moral rose to new levels. As she sat on top the shoulder of the Glasgow as ready as ever as she could for the operation she could not help but draw comparisons between then and now. It was so much different than what she used to do, she knew that the fight was being taken to those who deserved it.

She was not a hypocrite about her change of fate, exactly because of all the blood on her hands she gave her best and beyond. There was no redemption for her with Zero she looked forward to doing something meaningful.

What could be more meaningful than fighting the good fight alongside Zero, mysterious leader of the Black Knights, the only man to challenge the tyrannical empire and get away with it. He declared he would not repudiate a fight on equal terms and he never did.

She could not help but quote a new recruit she overheard gossiping. When asked why they where called the Black Knights he answered. "Because they strike from the darkness." Her voice was drowned by the sound of the engine. She herself did not know where the name came from but it fit their modus operandi.

From the shadows they appeared and struck at the time and place that they choose never using more force than necessary and by the time the Britannian war machine arrived to the scene they had already blended with the shadows and disappeared into the night.

"Kallen standby, we're about to begin." Her radio crackled.

She picked it up pressing and holding the button on the side. "I'm ready." She replied opening the hatch for the frame and mounting it.

This was her calling, to fight the good fight.


End file.
